Arab party’s Jewish MK rethinks censure of Gulf states for blacklisting Hezbollah

Joint (Arab) List MK Dov Khenin, the faction’s sole Jewish representative in the Knesset, on Friday sought to explain the reasoning behind a move by members of his party earlier this week to condemn Arab Gulf states for designating Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. The statement released by the faction, he said, was “not well-written.”

Hezbollah is openly committed to destroying Israel, and has an estimated 100,000-plus rockets and missiles aimed at the Jewish state. Last month, the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah threatened to bomb the Haifa ammonia storage facility, bragging that a missile strike there would have an impact similar to a nuclear attack.

In an interview Friday evening to Channel 2 television, Khenin stressed that he viewed any deliberate targeting of civilians as an act of terrorism, and emphasized that the Joint List does not support the Shiite group in any form, saying any such accusations against it were disingenuous.

“I had a very difficult week,” said Khenin, who chairs Hadash, one of the four factions that united ahead of last year’s elections to form the Joint List. “I belong to a Jewish-Arab, socialist peace movement, and suddenly we are labeled as supporters of a religious fundamentalist military organization. The bottom line is that we were labeled as if we were in favor of missiles being fired at us. Really? You can do many things in a political debate… but really, there are limits.”

The MK said he agreed that his faction’s condemnation of the Gulf states should have been more carefully worded. He insisted the main focus of the text was not to absolve Hezbollah of terrorist activity, but rather to point to the Arab countries’ hypocrisy when dealing with the Islamic State group.

“Hadash issued a statement, a long text, whose subject was not at all Hezbollah, the real issue was Daesh,” he said, referring to the Islamic State by an Arabic acronym. “In the announcement by Hadash there is paragraph that denounces the hypocrisy of the rulers of the Gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, [who] on the one hand, support Daesh and organizations like Daesh, and on the other hand want to be seen as fighting terrorism,” Khenin continued.

“I’m not hiding behind anything, [the statement] was not well-written and that is a shame. If it had gone through some debate the text would have been written otherwise.”

Hadash, which is helmed by Joint List chief MK Ayman Odeh, denounced the blacklisting of the Lebanon-based organization on Monday.

The party posted on its Arabic-language website a fierce condemnation of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States for their decision to outlaw Hezbollah, which they said came “in the service of occupation and the continued occupation of Arab land.”

Balad — another of the four parties constituting the Joint List — followed Hadash’s lead, posting a condemnation of the Gulf Cooperation Council on its website on Monday afternoon.

Khenin’s interview was broadcast shortly after the Arab League also declared Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. Nearly all members of the pan-Arab body supported the decision, expect for Lebanon and Iraq, who expressed “reservations,” the 22-member bloc said in a statement read out at a news conference by Bahraini diplomat Wahid Mubarak Sayar.

Last Wednesday the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council declared Hezbollah, which has lawmakers in the Lebanese parliament, a terror group in the latest step against the organization, as ties between its Shiite backer Iran and Sunni powerhouse Saudi Arabia deteriorate amid multiple regional Sunni-Shiite conflicts. Gulf monarchies had already sanctioned Hezbollah in 2013 in reprisal for its armed intervention in Syria in support of embattled strongman Bashar Assad.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out on Monday at the Arab MKs for condemning the Gulf Arab states.

“Countries from the Arab world decided to recognize Hezbollah as a terror group. This is an important development. Even amazing,” Netanyahu said in the Knesset on Monday evening. “But what’s no less amazing is that two parties here in the Knesset condemned the decision. Will you continue to condemn them when Hezbollah shoots missiles at your villages? Have you gone mad?” the prime minister said, adding immediately: “Excuse the expression.”

According to a Channel 2 television poll published Thursday, 56% of respondents disagreed with two Joint List parties — Hadash and Balad — for condemning the Gulf Arab states, while just under one fifth (19%) said they approved of the move. The remaining quarter said they either don’t know if the condemnation was justified or declined to answer.

Adiv Sterman and Stuart Winer contributed to this report.